How Much Tax Do Small Businesses Pay?

Tax reform means changes in how small businesses pay taxes. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed in December 2017, comes with several key changes to how small businesses pay taxes and how much tax they pay. What does the term "business tax" mean and how does it affect your small business?

Since small business (non-corporate) tax rates are tied to the total income of the business owner, we need to look at the income tax rates that will go into effect beginning in 2018 and continuing for 8 years.

What is the Corporate Tax Rate?

Larger businesses and those taxed as corporations will have the biggest tax cut under the new tax law. The corporate tax rate has been cut from a table with the highest corporate taxes at 37% to a flat 21%. This change has no expiration date on it.

Capital gains taxes on business investments and on the sale of business assets. Long-term capital gains (held more than a year) are taxed at different levels, depending on the income of the business, Short-term capital gains are taxed as ordinary income.

Businesses must pay property tax on real property (land and buildings) owned by the business.

What About State Taxes for Businesses?

The new tax law will also affect state income taxes (for states that have an income tax) and other state taxes. Some states have a better business tax climate than others; the Tax Foundation rates states on their business tax situation, with all taxes taken into account.

How Do Small Business Owners Pay Taxes?

Most small businesses are owned by individuals. As discussed above, partnerships, LLC's, and sole proprietor businesses pay no business tax, but the tax is passed through to the owners and is paid by the owners on their personal tax returns. So, asking the question about how much tax they pay gets muddled up in the tax owed by the individual for all forms of income, not just the income of the business.

The only type of business that pays taxes on its own is a corporation. The corporation's owners don't pay any tax on the corporation's profits, but they are taxed on their income if they work as employees, and they are taxed on dividend income they receive (the so-called "double taxation" issue).

Considering the Effective Tax Rate

Small businesses of all types pay an estimated average effective tax rate of 19.8 percent. The effective tax rate is the average rate of tax for a business or an individual taxpayer. The effective tax rate is calculated by dividing the total tax paid by the taxable income. The other way to look at tax rates is the marginal tax rate, which is the highest rate paid by the business or individual. The corporate tax rate table, for example, has different tax rates for different levels of corporate income.

I don't like averages because they don't tell you much of anything about the ends of the curve. You know what they say: If you stick your head in the oven and your feet in the freezer, on average you're just right.

According to the SBA report mentioned above,

Sole proprietorships face a 13.3 percent rate, small partnerships face 23.6 percent, and small S corporations face 26.9 percent. While not directly comparable, the rate faced by small C corporations is 17.5 percent.

Net income differences in types of businesses

What is more interesting to me in this SBA report is the statistics about net income.

Nearly 60 percent of small sole proprietorships have a net income of less than $10,000, while only 3.1 percent have a net income of at least $100,000. On the other hand, more than 18 percent of small S corporations have a net income of at least $100,000.

The higher income for corporations would be a factor in explaining their higher tax rate.

What about taxes for LLC businesses?

If you are wondering why limited liability companies (LLCs) are not listed, remember that the LLC business type is not considered a tax entity by the IRS. An LLC with one owner is taxed as a sole proprietorship, with tax liability calculated on Schedule C of the owner's personal tax return. Multiple-member LLC's are taxed as partnerships. In both cases, LLC taxes are passed through to their owners.